JDC Literature Review
The JDC literature review contains summaries of recent publications and academic scholarship on issues relating to forced displacement.
The impact of cash transfers on Syrian refugees in Lebanon: Evidence from a multidimensional regression discontinuity design
This paper examines the impact of multipurpose cash assistance (MPC) provided to Syrian refugee households in Lebanon. Approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees lived in Lebanon in 2018, of whom almost a million were registered with the United Nations High...
Children on the move: Progressive redistribution of humanitarian cash transfers among refugees
This paper examines the causal effects of the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) program, which was launched in November 2016 and currently supports around 1.7 million refugees in Turkey. The analysis is based on a pre-assistance baseline survey (PAB) undertaken by...
Multi-purpose cash transfers and health among vulnerable Syrian refugees in Lebanon: a prospective cohort study
This paper evaluates the impact of multipurpose cash transfers (MPCs) on health-seeking behavior, health service utilization, and health expenditures by Syrian refugees in Lebanon. At the beginning of 2020, there were nearly 1 million registered refugees in Lebanon,...
The short-lived effects of unconditional cash transfers to refugees
This paper examines the effect of two large-scale cash transfer programs on the welfare of Syrian refugee households in Lebanon. Lebanon hosts approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees. The authors quantify the effect of the multipurpose cash assistance program, which...
Does Aid Reduce Anti-refugee Violence? Evidence from Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
Lebanon, a country with a population of 4.5 million, has received more than a million refugees since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Most Syrian refugees live in individual accommodation in Lebanese towns. This paper examines the effect of aid to...
Migration Is What You Make It: Seven Policy Decisions that Turned Challenges into Opportunities
The impact of immigration (including refugee flows) can vary across contexts depending on the characteristics of migrants and the local communities in which they settle, as well as the policy environment that regulates the integration of migrants and responses of...
“Yes” in my backyard? The economics of refugees and their social dynamics in Kakuma, Kenya
In 2016, Kenya hosted more than half a million registered refugees, roughly a third of whom (more than 190,000 people) were living in the Kakuma refugee camp, located in in Kenya’s northwestern Turkana County. Turkana County is one of Kenya’s most impoverished and...
Cost-Effectiveness of Jobs Projects in Conflict and Forced Displacement Contexts
This working paper examines the cost and results of jobs support projects financed by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Bank in six low- and middle-income countries, with a...
An Adaptive Targeted Field Experiment: Job Search Assistance for Refugees in Jordan
The Government of Jordan estimates that around 1.3 million Syrian refugees have arrived in the country since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, of whom 660,000 have registered with UNHCR. This paper estimates the effect of a program to assist Syrian refugees and...
Immigration and Occupational Downgrading in Colombia
Between 2015 and 2019, political and economic turmoil in Venezuela forced about 1.8 million people to migrate to Colombia, increasing the country’s population by almost 4 percent. Venezuelan migrants disproportionately found employment in occupations that employ less...